Stone Cold (26 page)

He turned around in the narrow tunnel, soil cascading over him as his shoulders brushed the tunnel sides and his head brushed its top. He tried to estimate how far away the next hole had been.
Ten feet maybe? He started to crawl, fingers digging into the earth of the tunnel’s floor. Small beetles and other invertebrates scattered from beneath his fingers as he moved, but he ignored
them. His back ached from being crouched over, but he ignored that as well. Everything else was a distraction – he had to get to Matty, and then get them both out of there.

Something made a snorting noise ahead of him.

He stopped dead in the tunnel, listening.

A grunting noise, and a shuffling.

There was something in the tunnel with him.

His mind flashed through the possibilities. It sounded too large to be an insect or a beetle. Far too large. Snakes and beetles didn’t grunt or snort either. A fox,
maybe? Perhaps over the years foxes had taken over the tunnels, using them as their dens rather than dig new ones.

Or maybe it was a badger. A sudden chill washed over him like freezing water. Badgers were notoriously dangerous. They had sharp digging claws, sharp teeth and bad tempers. They had no natural
predators – nothing was going to risk going up against a badger. They were vicious.

And he was trapped in a tunnel with one.

He began to edge backwards, very quietly and very calmly.

‘Sherlock – is that you?’ a voice whispered.

‘Matty!’ Relief filled him, making him giddy. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Escapin’. What are
you
doin’?’

‘The same thing. You found the hatch in the bottom of the crate then?’

‘Actually,’ Matty said, ‘I fell through. The wood was rotten. Knocked myself out for a minute or two. When I came round I thought I’d explore a bit. These are escape
tunnels then?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘Which way’s out?’

Sherlock considered for a moment. His initial thought was that there would be exits at the end of each tunnel, but he could see now that he’d been wrong about that. Tunnel exits all around
the orchard would be easy to spot, and would make the whole cleverness about the apple trees, the barrels and the holes pointless. No, there would be one way out, cleverly disguised; probably only
accessible from the inside, and not visible from the outside until it was opened. If there was only one exit, however, but there was a grid of tunnels, then how to find the way? Yes, perhaps the
original hiders would have had oil lamps, but maybe they wouldn’t. There had to be some way of indicating to them which way was out in the event of an emergency.

‘Sherlock?’

‘Thinking.’

‘Okay. Don’t take too long.’

Sherlock backed up slightly until he was beneath the crate he had started off in. He was at the crossroads of four tunnels now. He carefully checked each corner where two tunnels met. Somewhere
there, he felt sure, there would be a sign, an indication. Yes! Set just inside one tunnel he felt a round, smooth stone, completely different from anything else he could feel on the tunnel walls.
It was a marker – or at least, it was the closest thing to a marker he was going to get.

‘I think I’ve got it. Follow me.’

Sherlock made his way along the tunnel to the next junction, with Matty following. It took him a few moments to locate the smooth stone there, but it was to the left. He went that way, making
sure that Matty knew which direction he had gone.

Right at the next, then straight on for the next three. The next few turns were strange – left, then right, then right again, and then left, as if they were detouring around something.
After that it was straight on again for five junctions. That brought him up against a hard barrier.

Matty crashed into him from behind. ‘Sorry!’

‘I think we’re there.’

He pushed, first tentatively, then harder. Nothing shifted. He examined the barrier with his fingers. It felt like it was constructed of similarly sized rough rocks arranged into a wall.
Sherlock settled back and thought for a moment. There would be no point in allowing hidden Cavalier sympathizers to get this far and then frustrating their efforts to escape at the last minute.
There had to be an answer to this conundrum, as there had been to the others.

Some kind of tool, perhaps? He gingerly felt around in the soil to his left and to his right, hoping that if there was a tool that it hadn’t been removed by some foraging animal looking
for material to build a den with.

Just as he was about to ask Matty to check around where he was crouching, his questing fingers brushed across a hard metal object. It was cold to the touch. He dug it out of the earth and
checked it from one end to the other. It felt like a crowbar – a metal shaft with carved metal spikes at one end. Just the kind of thing one might use to lever stones out of a wall.

It took him five minutes, and he was damp with sweat when he had finished, but he made a gap in the stone wall large enough to wriggle through. Beyond the wall was soft earth, which he scooped
away until he could feel fresh air on his face. He threw his head back and breathed gratefully, then pushed the last remnants of soil out of the way and crawled through a barrier of moss and leaves
out into the open.

The moon was shining down, and it seemed like the brightest light he had ever seen. He blinked, dazzled, as Matty scrambled out beside him.

They were on the far side of the orchard, where he had been earlier in the day. The ground sloped away in front of them to a distant landscape of dark fields and black copses of trees.

Looking back, he could see that the exit would have been completely invisible from the outside – until it was broken through. He quickly spread some moss and branches back across the hole
to help disguise it from anyone who happened to look over the orchard wall.

‘That,’ he whispered, ‘was too close.’

‘I knew you’d get us out,’ Matty said quietly. His hand closed on Sherlock’s shoulder. ‘Thanks, mate.’

‘No problem.’

‘What now?’ he asked.

‘Now we go and alert the police. I’m not risking a fight with those guys. I’m exhausted, and there are too many of them and they’re armed.’

‘Amen to that,’ Matty murmured.

Sherlock calculated which way to go. The road that led past Maberley’s house was a black ribbon off to his right. If they went over there then they could make their way back to where their
horses were tied up – assuming they were still there.

‘Come on,’ he said.

His legs were wobbly and weak, but standing up was a blessing, and the breeze on his face was a delight. As the two of them walked sideways along the slope he listened out for any sound from the
criminals in the orchard, but he could hear nothing. They were, when all was said and done, very professional in their approach.

Sherlock, however, had an advantage. He had already worked out where the treasure was. He had no doubt that if he went back later, in daylight, he could find it.

They made it on to the smoother surface of the road and headed on up the slope to where it crested the ridge. The orchard was visible away to their right, and they kept low and quiet as they
moved. They reached the gateway into the grounds of Maberley’s house and halted, looking for any signs of activity.

The lawn was almost completely clear of trees now. The muffled cart that had been used to move them was sitting, abandoned, just outside the house, with the shire horses contentedly munching
grass. Sherlock assumed that the criminals were in the orchard, busy putting all the trees back. They obviously hadn’t found the treasure yet, and they were preparing to leave, only to come
back again on another night. He was going to lose them unless he did something.

His brain whirled, thinking through all the options.

He had speculated earlier that the gang had access to some kind of empty barn nearby, where they could store the huge modified cart when they weren’t using it. They certainly
wouldn’t want to be driving it around the roads during daylight hours. They would be heading off there soon, while it was still dark, and presumably resting there for a little while, getting
some sleep maybe, or having a rough meal, before dispersing to their various homes until the next time they were required. Sherlock had to somehow find out where their base was and keep them all
there so that the police could apprehend the entire gang.

Something was nagging at his brain. The solution was there, in front of him, if he could only see it.

While nobody was about, he dashed across to the muffled cart and looked inside. It was empty apart from a lot of soil left behind by the trees, some coils of rope and a few tarpaulins. He
assumed that the men would just pile into it and be pulled back to their base, so even if he managed to get inside the cart and cover himself with a tarpaulin or something he would be discovered
fairly quickly when someone kicked him, or fell across him, or just decided they were cold and pulled the tarpaulin off him. No, there had to be another way.

Follow them on horseback? They would be watching out for anyone who showed too much interest in them, and if he was riding close enough to keep tabs on the cart then the people inside would
undoubtedly see him.

He crouched down and glanced underneath the cart. The axles were reinforced, to take the weight of the trees. Each axle ran through several thick iron hoops, which were riveted to the
cart’s wooden underside. The hoops were larger than the axles, which meant there was a space between the bottom of the rotating axle and the inside of the hoop. That gave Sherlock an
idea.

He stood up, reached into the back of the cart and grabbed a coil of rope.

‘Quickly,’ he said to Matty, ‘help me string this rope between the axle hoops underneath this thing. I need to build a kind of hammock for myself.’

The expression on Matty’s face indicated that he didn’t understand why Sherlock wanted to do that, but he complied. Quickly, before any of the gang came back – and working on
the side of the cart facing away from the orchard so that they wouldn’t be seen by anyone returning – they cut lengths of rope with Matty’s knife and tied them into a rough web
that hung beneath the cart, fastened at each axle hoop.

When they had finished, Sherlock patted Matty on the shoulder. ‘Good work. Your job now is to go inside and wake Maberley when the gang have left. They’ll obviously take the
chloroform with them, in the cart, rather than leave it behind to be discovered. When Maberley’s awake, explain to him what’s been going on, then the two of you head into the nearest
village and rouse as many police and interested citizens as you can. Our horses are here, tied up, and I assume Maberley has a horse. If not, use mine. Get the police back here.’

‘Where will you be?’ Matty asked.

‘I don’t know yet, but I’ll send a signal telling you. Somehow.’

Matty stared at him for a moment. ‘I hate it when you don’t have a plan,’ he said finally. ‘You don’t do well when you’re improvisin’.’

‘Hey, I got you out of the orchard in one piece, didn’t I?’

Matty nodded. ‘You did at that. All right then – take care of yourself. Don’t die.’

‘I’ll try not to.’

Matty ran off towards the house, and Sherlock crawled into the web of rope beneath the cart. His weight pulled it further down towards the ground than he had intended, and he had a sudden
horrible thought that he might end up being dragged along the road rather than hanging above it, but suddenly it was too late to do anything about it. He heard the sounds of men returning from the
orchard and muffled conversations.

‘Get the chloroform canisters,’ Jude’s voice said – higher and smoother than the others, but his tone conveyed unmistakably that he was in charge.

The rope was cutting into Sherlock as he lay there, face down. He could feel it pressing his chest and forcing his arms back in an uncomfortable way. He tried to worm his hands through the
strands, but then they just hung down almost to the ground, and he knew that when the cart started moving his knuckles or his fingertips would be dragged in the dirt, so he pulled them in again.
One strand of rope crossed his throat, and he felt like gagging every time he moved his head and it pressed on his windpipe.

This was maybe not the smartest move ever.

He felt the cart rock as objects were loaded on and people climbed aboard. The wooden underneath bowed closer and closer as people weighed it down. Eventually, at some silent signal, the horses
took up the slack on their harnesses and the cart began to move.

The padding on the wheels made it a smooth ride, but even so Sherlock found himself moving around, swinging from side to side. The road rolled past just a few inches beneath him, and he found
himself fixating on particular stones set into the earth as they entered his field of view. He felt sick. It was like being on a ship, with the exception that he couldn’t see the horizon or
feel the breeze. On a ship below decks, maybe.

Under better circumstances, rocking back and forth like that might have sent him to sleep, but he was concerned about the knots holding the web of rope on to the iron axle loops. If just one of
those knots slipped, then the best thing that could happen was that he would be dropped into the road and left behind. The worst outcome would be that his foot might get caught in the ropes and he
would be dragged along underneath the cart, his skin shredded by every rock, until he looked like a side of beef hanging in a butcher’s window.

The dust rising from the road made his throat dry. He would give a hundred pounds for a glass of water, just at that moment.

The journey seemed to last forever, but in reality they couldn’t have gone more than half a mile down the road before the cart slowed down and began a ponderous turn into a gated field. It
was still dark, but when the moon’s light was eclipsed by some dark bulk Sherlock knew that his deduction about a barn had been correct. The cart rolled inside and stopped. Sherlock waited as
the men on board disembarked and the horses were untied.